Significant Tornado Events

[Tennie]

ERA5 Reanalysis nailed the Worcester Tornado Environment. Having that much stretching in an instability profile, combined with strong shear (ERA5 has a tendency to under-do kinematics sometimes), is going to result in a major disaster. Add all of that streamwise vorticity, and man, this is going to be a classic semi-northwest flow tornado event. It's evident that ERA5 underdid the kinematics somewhat, as it shows a textbook high-precipitation supercell setup, as seen from the SR Wind with height graph. However, by all photographic evidence, the Worcester Tornado appeared to be quite visible (correct me if I'm wrong.) This is evidence that the shear was strong enough to vent the updraft free of precipitation, which tells me that the actual hodograph would have been larger, and the wind shear values higher.

View attachment 8200

On the note of ERA5 biases, here's a paper that details an analysis of the ERA5's biases (which should be kept in mind when using the data from it):

Comparison of Convective Parameters Derived from ERA5 and MERRA-2 with Rawinsonde Data over Europe and North America

Abstract In this study we compared 3.7 million rawinsonde observations from 232 stations over Europe and North America with proximal vertical profiles from ERA5 and MERRA-2 to examine how well reanalysis depicts observed convective parameters. Larger differences between soundings and reanalysis...

journals.ametsoc.org

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Damage from the August 25, 1948, Waikato tornado. This is one of the deadliest tornadoes in New Zealand history with 3 fatalities.

 

[buckeye05]

Damage from the August 25, 1948, Waikato tornado. This is one of the deadliest tornadoes in New Zealand history with 3 fatalities.

Wow, that looks significant. What was this rated? Looks like at least high-end F2. Also, the only other NZ tornado I know of that caused that many fatalities was the Hobsonville EF2 of 2012. The damage from that event wasn't nearly as significant as the photos shown above though.

 

[buckeye05]

Also I wish there was an official, reliable, and easily accessed database for tornadoes outside of the US. Europe kinda has one, but it’s far from perfect and still very much needed for other places that get strong tornadoes frequently, like Canada, Brazil, and China.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Wow, that looks significant. What was this rated? Looks like at least high-end F2. Also, the only other NZ tornado I know of that caused that many fatalities was the Hobsonville EF2 of 2012. The damage from that event wasn't nearly as significant as the photos shown above though.

Most sources list it as an F2.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Also I wish there was an official, reliable, and easily accessed database for tornadoes outside of the US. Europe kinda has one, but it’s far from perfect and still very much needed for other places that get strong tornadoes frequently, like Canada, Brazil, and China.

China, Brazil, and Argentina also have rather poor archived newspaper databases.

 

[locomusic01]

So, quick update re: Tupelo - Gainesville. Probably won't be able to finish today. Super bummed, but I just couldn't do it without really half-assing it. I'd rather whole-money maker it(?) and be a little late. Cautiously optimistic I'll be able to post sometime tomorrow - getting pretty close to finishing the writing, so then I'll just have to add the rest of the photos and whatnot. I took out the references for now to save a little time but I'll add them at some point. I dunno if anyone even cares about that anyway lol

In the meantime, here are a couple of neat videos. Y'all have probably already seen this one:

AP

www.aparchive.com

This one has some shots that you don't see very often, including a quick clip or two from Columbia, TN.

And this video includes a bit of aerial footage.

I'm almost certain the Sherman Grinberg Film Library has more aerial video, but for some reason, no one answered the email I sent. Probably would have to pay a fortune for it anyway.

On another note, I dunno what the LD50 is for coffee, but I think I'm pretty close to finding out.

(Edit: The video links went haywire, hopefully okay now.)

 

[TH2002]

So, quick update re: Tupelo - Gainesville. Probably won't be able to finish today. Super bummed, but I just couldn't do it without really half-assing it. I'd rather whole-money maker it(?) and be a little late. Cautiously optimistic I'll be able to post sometime tomorrow - getting pretty close to finishing the writing, so then I'll just have to add the rest of the photos and whatnot. I took out the references for now to save a little time but I'll add them at some point. I dunno if anyone even cares about that anyway lol

In the meantime, here are a couple of neat videos. Y'all have probably already seen this one:

AP

www.aparchive.com

This one has some shots that you don't see very often, including a quick clip or two from Columbia, TN.

And this video includes a bit of aerial footage.

I'm almost certain the Sherman Grinberg Film Library has more aerial video, but for some reason, no one answered the email I sent. Probably would have to pay a fortune for it anyway.

On another note, I dunno what the LD50 is for coffee, but I think I'm pretty close to finding out.

(Edit: The video links went haywire, hopefully okay now.)

IMHO, take as much time as you need. If you can't even finish the article by tomorrow that's fine, especially since your blog has (rightfully) built up a reputation in this community for being very thorough and well-written. In any case, looking forward to the article. Hope you don't close up shop too as there are very few other blogs out there like yours.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

One forgotten but very interesting Pacific NW tornadic event is the June 11, 1968 Wallowa OR F2. This was associated with a long-tracked supercell that tracked from Wallowa National Forest to near Missoula MT, around 100 miles. The same supercell produced 2.5-inch diameter hailstones in Idaho. Not much is known about this tornado though it destroyed 1800 acres of timber with 40 million board feet of timber being blown down. The damage swath ranged from 800 yd to 3500 yd in width and 10 miles long. Eyewitnesses reported a freight train-like roar and in some cases a funnel cloud.

 

[Marshal79344]

I've been fumbling around with Anthony's Reanalysis Bot, and look at this sounding from May 5th, 1960. Never seen a more perfect hodograph. This was taken right over Wilburton, OK, one of many cities that was hit hard that day.



Some Damage Photos from Wilburton

 

[Marshal79344]

I've been fumbling around with Anthony's Reanalysis Bot, and look at this sounding from May 5th, 1960. Never seen a more perfect hodograph. This was taken right over Wilburton, OK, one of many cities that was hit hard that day.

View attachment 8386

Some Damage Photos from Wilburton

View attachment 8387View attachment 8388View attachment 8389View attachment 8390

Let's ignore the RH malfunction just under the EL, it happens a lot with ERA5

 

[TH2002]

The 1977 Gillsburg-McComb, MS tornado has also been completely forgotten. Practically no information beyond what is available from the interactive Tornado Archive and Grazulis' Significant Tornadoes. Part of the same outbreak that spawned an F3 tornado in Houston, TX killing one and injuring 40.

NOTE: Tornado is officially rated F3; rated F2 by Grazulis.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

The 1977 Gillsburg-McComb, MS tornado has also been completely forgotten. Practically no information beyond what is available from the interactive Tornado Archive and Grazulis' Significant Tornadoes. Part of the same outbreak that spawned an F3 tornado in Houston, TX killing one and injuring 40.

NOTE: Tornado is officially rated F3; rated F2 by Grazulis.

I'm sure someone in the Gillsburg or McComb areas is sitting on a collection of photographs we'd all like to see.

 

[TH2002]

I'm sure someone in the Gillsburg or McComb areas is sitting on a collection of photographs we'd all like to see.

First the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash (which there is at least plenty of photos of) and then a tornado less than two months later. Very unfortunate that Gillsburg had to have two tragedies in the same year...

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

The 1977 Gillsburg-McComb, MS tornado has also been completely forgotten. Practically no information beyond what is available from the interactive Tornado Archive and Grazulis' Significant Tornadoes. Part of the same outbreak that spawned an F3 tornado in Houston, TX killing one and injuring 40.

NOTE: Tornado is officially rated F3; rated F2 by Grazulis.

The tornado doesn’t seem to have caused many injuries or devastating damage and was overshadowed by the Houston tornado the same day which is probably why it was so poorly-documented.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

There is definitely some grass scouring visible in that wind rowing photo. Somewhere on Youtube, Robert Prentice posted a damage video that I believe was filmed in the aforementioned area, and in the video he actually pulls a deeply embedded, bent metal spoon out of a patch of scoured ground. Wild stuff.

Edit: Here it is. The spoon bit is at 1:16.

1:36 when the camera stops zooming out and you can see what looks like a landfill or garbage but was actually an entire suburban neighborhood. Complete utter desolation. I really feel for anyone unlucky enough to have been caught in the path of this thing.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Intense long-tracked and large tornadoes are extremely rare in the Amazon Rainforest. Also, the 1985 Parker Dam PA tornado downed ~2,475,000 trees.

Where'd you get that number? According to Grazulis the number was 88,000.

 

[Marshal79344]

I wouldn't say they are rare there, just not well documented. Here, check this post out:

Significant Tornado Events

Personally I gotta disagree with the F5 rating for Rocksprings Hmmm idk about that conclusion. The reports of the damage in Rocksprinfs that I’ve read suggest an extremely violent tornado, with the worst damage occurring in residential areas of town. Apparently, some areas of neighborhoods...

talkweather.com

They are nearly impossible to get, as there is always a lack of a well-organized system that moves through the area that can bring tornadoes with it. Everything in the Amazonian Rainforests, which is almost all in Brazil, is just intense pulse-convection that gives it the name "rainforest"

 

[Marshal79344]

They are nearly impossible to get, as there is always a lack of a well-organized system that moves through the area that can bring tornadoes with it. Everything in the Amazonian Rainforests, which is almost all in Brazil, is just intense pulse-convection that gives it the name "rainforest"

Most of the intense tornadoes that have been discovered through LANDSAT imagery in that area were in the once completely forested areas of Paraguay and Argentina.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Where'd you get that number? According to Grazulis the number was 88,000.

Dr. Forbes survey said it was destroying 33,000 trees a minute and considering it was on the ground for an hour and 55 minutes.